Remaining the consciousness of your mind and cultivate your nature can you understand the whole universe.”

He means that with all your benevolence can you realize your nature

Realizing your nature will you understand your fortune

Preserving your good nature and benevolence to confront your destiny

Remaining your attitude regardless of a prolonged or short-lived life, and cultivating a good nature until the day of your deathbed

this is the right way to lead an normal life

and an early reflection of “harmony between nature and men”

So, the major pre-Qin period Confucianism is that of Confucius and Mencius, which make a solid basement for the development of Confucianism

Next, we’ll talk about Confucianism in Qin and Han Dynasty

And the representor of this period is Dong Zhongshu

His thoughts can be divided into 2 parts

Firstly, the unification of Spring and Autumn period

From a historical period, after Qin’s union of China

He should give up the Legalist thoughts during war times

But adopt Confucianism which is beneficial for central power and social solidity

But YinZhen didn’t do like that

Instead, as we all know, he burn books and bury the literati in pits

finally failed to build a unified feudal state and establish a stable social order

Dong is quite conscious of the lesson

So he often remind then emperor with gentle words

Dong’s dream for an ideal society is to build a harmony and stable unified society

As to him, unification is the utmost meaning of Spring and Autumn

He said; “The unification of Spring and Autumn Period is the universally acknowledged consensus.”

So he hoped that Emperor Wudi can be a saint

and shoulder the great work of establishing an unified feudal state

The utmost feature of unification is the unification of one’s mind

In Dong’s Raising the Virtuous

he suggested Emperor Wudi to suppress other schools and only respect Confucianism

and he holds that nothing excluding Confucianism should be uprooted and abandoned

Of course he adopts an extreme method

He did adopt an extreme way from current cultural perspective

But at that time, he shifted from one extreme point to another end

with a different way

Emperor Wudi accepted this advice

Since then, Confucianism turned into the knowledge of how to being a governor, rising to the most superior position

Secondly, “the divine right of kings, the harmony between men and nature”

“The divine right of kings” is that the power of kings is endowed by God

Tianzi is another name for the emperor, that is to say, the son of God

Which reflects the definition of the word

Actually, the combination of human and nature has the same implied meaning with it

Namely, man’s behavior will effect the cycles of Heaven

If there happens some nature disasters

It implied the amorality of the king

Which is the punishment of the nature

and the Emperor should introspect his mistake

above is the meaning of the combination and harmony of human and nature

But, from a nowadays perspective, it is a subjective idealist point of view

And it can be also interpreted as that Dong’s Confucianism has been reformed to adapt the needs of governor.

Besides this, he also came up with some other “mercy politics”, such as limiting the acreage of field, unburdening the tax,

And some moral such as the Three Cardinal Guides (ruler guides subject, father guides son and husband guides wife) and Five Constant Virtues (benevolence, righteousness, propriety, knowledge and sincerity) -- principle of feudal moral conduct ;

If you have any interest in it, you can do some further reading in this field.

Then, thirdly, we will talk about Song-Ming Period Confucianism

There is a proper noun neo-Confucianism for it

At this period, Chen Yi and Zhu Xi has biggest effect on it

Then who is Chen and Zhu?

Of course, Chen is Chen Hao and Chen Yi, Zhu is Zhu Xi

Actually, it’s a neo-Confucianism sect represented by the above three

They hold that everything in the universe origin from reason, and a benevolent one

Making benevolence one’s nature

and it will contribute to a virtuous world

Man, tangled in the chaotic mess,

it is easy for one to get lost from his gift and get away from the basic of “reason”

Once the rite of a society is lost

All in all, they still consider this issue from a social aspect

They also believes that since reason is the origin of the whole universe

So the reason of the existence of everything has a “reason”

Inferring the essence of something

can reach the aim of gaining truth

We still often use it now, it means

To reach the aim of gaining truth by inferring the essence of something, it is undoubtingly correct

So if you cannot well control the expanding of your private desirer, you’ll go against the rule set by God

Then you can never become a saint, and you may also lost in the world

so you should cultivate your mentality and make full play of the nature endowed by God

to reach the highest level of “benevolence”

So this is the thought of “the combination of nature and people ”

then you can “follow your heart and regardless of obeying rules”

Here it mentions melting human desire into reason

and it also mentioning “eliminating human desire”

Then, “eliminating human desire” is not no desire but to combine desire with reason

Namely, no intention, motivation, rules nor self-identification

No matter what you do will not go against with nature rules

but it goes to another end

The so-called “limit desire to obey reason”

means that you all have to be conservative and controlling yourself

The Neo-Confucianism is a significant developing stage of Confucianism

It goes with the demanding of strengthening the centralization of feudal power

Based on Confucianism, it also absorbs some Buddhism

It integrates reason, benevolence, moral and desire to make the society more solid and peaceful,

making Confucianism more political and philosophical, gradually becoming the official School in South Song Dynasty

Besides this, the philosophy of the mind of Lu and Wang also merits our attention

It is came up by Confucianist Lu Jiu Yuan and Wang Yangming

It can also be called “the philosophy of the mind”

But there is also some philosophy of the mind belongs to certain philosopher, such as the “YangMing philosophy of the mind”of Wang Shouren

the philosophy of the mind of Lu and Wang is generally taken as originated from Mencius, boomed by Chen Yi and spread by Lu Jiuyuan

and achieved the highest level by Wang Yangming

If you have interest in it, you can do more readings in this aspect

So where does the special part of Song-Ming Dynasty Neo-Confucianism?

Firstly, the importance it attaches to mind

And it believes that “nothing exists without one’s mind”, “no reason exists without one’s mind”

“mind” is “one’s spirit”

My spirit is the dominant element of everything in the universe.

Secondly, the cognitive theory of “combination of theory and practice”

Zhu Xi has said that: “Practice comes after theory”

Wang came up with the combination of theory and practice that the subject should go with the object

Theory is scientific knowledge and practice is men’s action

the combination of theory and practice emphasize gaining the knowledge of the subject and realizing it in reality

and it is inseparable

It is quite reasonable

Ancient Chinese philosophers believe that we not only need knowledge and theory but also practice

I think it’s also valuable for us

Finally, we’ll take about modern Confucianism

modern Confucianism starts from 1920s

with major characteristics such as connecting Confucianist tradition

And melt with western knowledge. Take notice that the western culture had transmigrated into China at that time.

It is a Confucianist sect that seeking the modernization of Confucianism

The academic school call it modern Confucianism

with it representers Liang Shumin, Xiong Shili

Who forms into Neo-Confucianism of Lu and Wang

And Feng Youlan who forms into Neo-Confucianism of Chen and Zhu

As for the pioneer of Neo-Confucianism, Liang Shumin pay high respect to Confucianism

He believes that among Chinese, Western and Indian culture

the moderate and balanced Neo-Confucianism has a most promising future.

And Xiong Shili, who started the ontology of Neo-Confucianism

and established new Cittamatra

He is renowned as the concisest and most systematic scholar of the philosophy of mind of Lu and Wang